A study of the correlation between high-frequency noise and phase noise in low-noise silicon-based transistors

The evidence of a predominant contribution of the transistor high-frequency noise in residual phase-noise data is demonstrated. This behavior is observed in devices in which the low-frequency noise contribution has been carefully minimized through an optimized bias network, and at offsets frequency above 10 kHz. The phase-noise behavior is then described through nonlinear noise-figure measurements. These results open the way to phase-noise minimization, with a different approach from the one used in most circuit design tools.